Opportunity to build consensus for peace talks

This is an editorial from China Daily.

China accepted the invitation of Saudi Arabia to attend the meeting on the Ukraine crisis that was held in Jeddah on the weekend. Special Representative of the Chinese government on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui attended to help try and find a credible path to a political settlement of the conflict.

The representatives of more than 40 countries participated in the meeting, but the absence of Russia meant no immediate deal would be forthcoming to bring an end to the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Nonetheless, the representatives from all participating countries took part in the meeting in the hope that it would be able to pave the way for a peace summit to be convened this autumn.

That some countries refused to participate in the meeting points to the fact that the Ukraine crisis is a complicated issue. The prospects for a breakthrough have not been improved by Ukraine stubbornly sticking to its own 10-point peace plan that Russia has already rejected. Any lasting political solution will have to be acceptable to both conflicting parties.

China is under no illusions that the weekend meeting would be able to make any substantive progress toward the process of political settlement of the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, but as noted it participated actively and positively.

China is prepared to listen to other countries’ views and proposals for possible ways to first realize a cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia before making further efforts of its own to promote a final political solution to the crisis.

It has already put forward a 12-point peace plan for the political settlement of the crisis, but it hopes that the various proposals that are being put forward to reach a political settlement can be aligned so that they gain greater traction and become an irresistible force for peace.

It may be because of China’s good neighborly relations with Russia and its principled stand on the crisis that sending its special representative to the meeting raised expectations that it could help the meeting be constructive by snowball-like rolling the convergence of various proposals for a political settlement of the crisis.

Those looking to China for the key to unlock the impasse are doing so because of its previous success in brokering a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran and because of its constancy in trying to make it possible for Ukraine and Russia to engage indirectly, if not directly, to exchange ideas about how to agree on a cease-fire first and then peace talks, as that is clearly in the best interest of both countries.

China always believes that efforts for talks should never stop and that no matter how slim the chances of finding a peaceful solution to a military conflict may seem, history offers plenty of examples to show that reason in the end can prevail and bring the belligerents to the table for talks.